Lifeline
by riptydes
Summary: Soubi is there even when the line is cut. Soubi/Ritsuka.


Ritsuka tried to stifle a cough as, downstairs, something glass smashed against the wall. He heard the sound as though it travelled over a long distance before eventually reaching his ears – a sharp tinkling that seemed to go on for several moments, like it was occurring in slow-motion. Then the cough wormed its way out of his throat and past the hand that sought to hold it in, and Ritsuka choked and retched, though nothing in his stomach remained to come back up. He couldn't think how much time had passed, but he knew he hadn't eaten for at least the past day.

Water. He needed more water. That at least was important.

Ritsuka turned his head and glanced down at the floor. He had stocked up when he felt the cold coming on, a runny nose and niggling rawness at the back of his throat fair warning of what was to come, but the water was gone now, the empty bottles discarded. He hadn't bought enough, hadn't had the money for more and could not bring himself to ask Yuiko if he could borrow some.

A scream from somewhere below. His mother was upset, he didn't know why, and he hadn't unlocked his door in some time. She had hammered on it with her fists, calling out in panic for Ritsuka's brother and then, failing to get a response, to Ritsuka in a fit of rage. Telling him all the things she would do to him, all the ways she would punish him, using words he hadn't known it was possible for a mother to call her child. Ugly words he hadn't even known until then himself but that had followed him into his dreams. By the time he woke again she had finally gone quiet and he was hot and disorientated, and afraid to open the door in case it was a trick and she was waiting for him.

That had probably been yesterday, Ritsuka decided. Now his stomach was tight and cramped, his body almost unbearably warm, his eyes nearly too heavy to open at all as he searched for something, anything, to drink.

He found nothing, and it occurred to him that he would have to ask for help. Soubi. He should call Soubi. He had left his light on but it was dark outside. He didn't know what time it was but knew it was past the time for stubbornness. Where was his phone…?

There, on his desk. It took effort, too much effort, to get himself upright and stumble across the room, legs barely supporting his weight as the room spun in jerking, dizzying circles, but at last he held it in his hand. Fingers shaking, he pushed the buttons he knew would summon Soubi to him, wherever the man was and whatever he was doing.

And nothing. No beeping, no ringing, no sound at all to let him know Soubi could be reached. He stared down at the phone blankly, only to realize several moments later, finally, that his phone was out of battery.

His charger was downstairs. The thought formed slowly, painfully, just before the screaming and smashing from somewhere in the house commenced.

Too tired to contemplate the walk back to the bed where the sheets, damp with his sweat, would tangle back around Ritsuka's body, he knelt instead, still clutching the phone to him like a lifeline. Then, when his legs continued to shake, he lay down fully and stretched out on the floor.

"Soubi…" It made no sense to speak into a phone that had probably been dead for a day or more, but he forced the words out anyway. "It _hurts_. Help me, please. You promised…"

Time slipped past. He became aware of his breath rasping in his throat, the sweat drying cold on his skin and making him shiver, his head beginning to thump in time with his heartbeat. It was accompanied by a different kind of thumping – his mother perhaps, running up the stairs to bang on his bedroom door again, the sound making him wince. Then more crashing, shattering. Was she throwing things against his door? Would it continue until there was not a single piece of surviving glass in the house remaining?

And then, abruptly, a freezing gust of air that had Ritsuka gasping and drawing his knees into his chest, and a mouth whispering close to his ear.

"I'm here now. I'm taking you away."

"How…?"

Soubi's hair was windswept, his hands running over Ritsuka's head and face like he was checking to make sure that Ritsuka, unlike anything downstairs, was still in one piece. "You weren't answering your phone. You didn't answer when I banged on the window either, even though I could see you lying there. So I broke it."

He didn't sound particularly sorry about it, and Ritsuka wasn't looking for an apology. His hands gripped Soubi's shirt. "Can we go now?"

"Yes." Soubi's mouth against his hair. Soubi's eyes drinking him in, even as Ritsuka's were closing.

"Good." Against all reason, he kept a tight grip on his phone as consciousness left him – as Soubi gathered him gently up and spirited him away into the night.


End file.
